Meet the Wensleydale Creamery supplier who fears for the future of traditional tenant farms

Stephen Wyrill of Leases Farm in East Appleton near Richmond has been regional chairman of the Tenant Farmers Association for nearly 20 years, has lived his whole life at the family’s tenanted farm and was national chairman from 2014-17.

Stephen farms in partnership with his father Ken and brother Graham. They farm across just over 140 acres and also rent additional acreage and have 100 black and white cows that are milked by robots with the milk going to Wensleydale Creamery.

He knows where he stands with his tenancy agreement, but is more concerned for his tenant farmer colleagues who are on short-term arrangements.

“I’m on a retirement tenancy. That means when I retire I have to pack up. I’ve known that for years, but there are many who are on short-term Farm Business Tenancy (FBT) agreements and the current average is just over three years.

“Baroness Rock toured the UK to find out the good and bad points of tenancy agreements. She then presented the Rock Report to government.

“She explained that a lot of farmers are on short term tenancies, which was no surprise to us, and that as payments from the Basic Payments Scheme reduce, farmers across England are seeing their future cashflow diminish.

“The Rock Report also said the tidal wave of uncertainty around the new schemes means tenant farmers are struggling to see how they can remain viable without intensifying production and that tenant farmers face multiple barriers in accessing government schemes and growing their businesses, including rent requirements, short duration tenancy agreements, restrictive clauses and contractual issues.

Stephen said that it was heartening to hear that the report had been presented, but that months later nothing had been done to remedy the points made.

“The majority of tenant farmers today will be on FBTs and will be on a 3-5 year agreement. In some cases tenant farmers have managed to purchase some of their own land, but are now renting additional acres to expand their enterprise, but how can they with any degree of confidence if they only have that acreage for three years? How can they count on their expansion plans in future to keep moving forward?

“As a tenant farmer you cannot afford to spend your own capital on such as soil improvements, a major thing these days, when you don’t know whether you will be farming the land in a year or two. It doesn’t make any sense for tenant farmers, who are often innovators, people with great ideas, if they do not have greater security.

Stephen said that, having been involved in his regional capacity and nationally previously, the challenges facing tenant farmers largely fit into the same categories as they always have – the security of tenancy over a longer period to assist with better farming practice, greater empathy between landlords and tenants over tenancy arrangements and probably most importantly at present the government having a grasp of how important tenant farmers are to agriculture.

“The new Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS) have not come on properly as yet. They’re changing them all the time and this is a major frustration to all farmers. Everyone is being advised to get into these schemes, but the schemes are still in the process of being developed day by day while we see our Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) money constantly going down.

“We are looking for a longer-term view from government for tenant farmers, so that they can get into these schemes and by doing so be able to put land into better heart, look after it and do all of the soil reports and environmental stuff. That can be helped by tenant farmers being looked after better by government with legislation that should stipulate that the payments attributed to land farmed goes to the individual who is actually farming it.

Stephen said that on his own farm he, his brother and father have had a simple philosophy over gradually losing their single farm payment.

“All we’re going to do is produce more milk and do things a little more efficiently. We put two fresh robots in 18 months ago replacing what we had had for around ten years. They work a lot better and we will increase the herd to get to the amount of milk we need to produce.

Last week Defra announced that farmers will receive increased payments for protecting and enhancing nature and delivering sustainable food production under the Government’s Environmental Land Management schemes and Farming Minister Mark Spencer announced more money for farmers and landowners through the Countryside Stewardship and the Sustainable Farming Incentive schemes.

He confirmed that an expanded range of actions under the schemes, which farmers could be paid for, would be published soon.

“What he didn’t mention,” said Stephen. “Was anything to do with tenant farmers. In the meantime, we are encouraging members to report concerns from their areas to our head office. Currently there’s myself and regional vice chairman David Cupit covering Yorkshire to Scotland on the east coast.

“We want better connectivity and to keep everyone better informed and get our message across at a time when tenant farmers are having to cope with even greater pressures.

If you would like to report tenant farmer issues in your area you can contact the Tenant Farmers Association on 0118 930 6130